“你忘了那个赌注的条款了。” 马龙说。“她自己规定的条款。记得吗？‘一个我有谋杀动机的人 —— 在公共街道上被枪杀 —— 有很多目击者。’”
“You’re forgetting the terms of the bet,” Malone said. “The terms that she laid down herself. Remember? ‘Someone I have a motive for murdering—shot down in the public streets—with plenty of witnesses.’”
她沉默了一会儿。“没错。我忘了。不过 —— 也许我把一切都弄反了，但该死，整个事情都是颠倒的。我们知道莫娜?麦克莱恩杀了人，但我们不知道是谁、什么时候、为什么。通常情况下，人们被谋杀时情况正好相反。”
She was silent for a moment. “That’s right. I had forgotten. Still—I may be going at everything backward, but dammit, the whole thing’s backward. We know Mona McClane murdered somebody, but we don’t know who, or when, or why. Usually it’s just the other way when people get murdered.”
“为反常的人准备的反常谋杀。”
“Backward murders for backward people.”
她没理他。“这就是为什么，我不从谋杀案开始查起，而是从莫娜开始。我不会去找出她可能谋杀的人。我要像一个八卦作家一样回顾她的人生经历，找出她可能有谋杀动机的人，看看他们中有没有最近去世的。”
She paid no attention to him. “That’s why, instead of beginning with the murder, I’m beginning with Mona. I’m not going to find people she might have murdered. I’m going over her life history like a gossip writer and find people she might have had a motive for murdering, and see if any of them are recently dead.”
“在我看来，你好像给自己规划了一项终身事业。” 马龙嘟囔着。
“It looks to me as if you’d mapped out a life work for yourself,” Malone grunted.
两人都沉默了，想着同一件事。莫娜?麦克莱恩拥有世界上最庞大的财富之一，在所有已知的大陆上都有着稳固的社会地位。她的婚姻、离婚、恋情和丑闻都曾登上过周日增刊的历史。她曾穿着晚礼服，戴着着名的麦克莱恩祖母绿宝石独自飞越大西洋，因为她预计（并且确实）正好及时在巴黎参加一个派对而降落。她攀登珠穆朗玛峰的高度比其他任何女性都高，并且她还亲自为布鲁克菲尔德动物园捕获了两只老虎。她在三个晚上的轮盘赌中从芝加哥着名的餐饮、舞蹈和赌博场所 —— 赌场的老板，城市赌博集团的头目马克斯?胡克那里赢得了赌场。她有一个已婚的女儿，过着体面而富裕的郊区隐居生活，令人难以置信的是，她还是一位祖母。现在她声称在一场赌注中犯了一起谋杀案，而赌场就是赌注。
Both were silent, thinking the same thing. Mona McClane had one of the world’s greatest fortunes and an assured social position on all the known continents. Her marriages, divorces, romances, and scandals had made Sunday-supplement history. She had flown the Atlantic solo in an evening dress and wearing the famous McClane emeralds because she expected to land (and did) just in time for a party in Paris. She had climbed farther up Mt. Everest than any other woman, and she had personally captured two tigers for the Brookfield zoo. She had won the Casino, Chicago’s famous dining, dancing, and gambling spot, from the head of the city’s gambling syndicate, Max Hook, in three evenings at roulette. She had a married daughter living in respectable and wealthy suburban obscurity, and she was, incredibly, a grandmother. Now she claimed to have mitted a murder, on a bet, and the Casino was the stakes.
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